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Trollback's PBS Essence

By Tk Published on March 01, 2005.

Bicoastal Trollback + Co. has designed the first brand identity system for New York Public TV station WLIW since the channel's launch in 1969. The comprehensive on-air, print and online package includes a redesigned logotype, color palette and on-air graphics, in pursuit of a "clean, versatile and classic" design framework that would reflect the disparate programming approaches of public television, according to Trollback + Co. The process began by creating a "stripped-down, evenly weighted WLIW logotype," explains AD Todd Neale, who led the project. "The boldly vertical lines in the letters of WLIW, especially the I and L, were the inspiration for the bars and long windows that add motion and variety to the on-air graphics. Lower thirds, programming menus and promo graphics are all punctuated with the gliding bars and windows, cleanly and simply unifying the many elements. The nuanced WLIW palette serves to set the identity apart, with hues that represent the station's rich programming variety." The use of chocolate brown, cherry red, turquoise, orange and lime in different combinations offers an array of "distinct IDs that can be built out of the dozen individual graphics components," adds CD Jakob Trollback. "The design is, at its essence, an understated set of building blocks that can be endlessly recombined for fresh graphic results. Since the WLIW team will be manipulating a lot of the graphics themselves, we had a mandate to keep the system simple and straightforward. Although this may seem counterintuitive, the design didn't suffer from this constraint," he believes, "but became more effective. The simplest design solutions are often the most graceful."